Drawing the Truth From Beneath Her Skin
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: Images race behind her eyelids like forgotten memories. She tries to block them, but the only thing capable of even slightly drowning them out is the reverberating echo of a howl throughout her mind. Rose/Ten


When the Doctor asks her where she wants to go next, Rose thinks about it for a while before recalling how they'd once strolled under the light of the full moon along some beach in Spain. They haven't done anything like that since he became a different (but in many ways still so much the same) man. She voices her request for him to take her to that same beach on the night of a full moon thousands of years in the future from that last visit so that she can see how things have changed and what things remain the same. She notes the crease that forms between the Doctor's eyebrows for a moment before a huge smile erupts across his face, but she figures it's just due to a second spent in confusion before he realises the true purpose behind her request.

She gets so caught up in the joy of skipping in and out of the lapping waves with the Doctor's hand in hers that she doesn't think to look up and notice that the moon shining down on them isn't full after all.

Nor does she realise that she hasn't actually seen a single full moon since well before they'd faced that Dalek fleet. She has no way to know that the Doctor has more than just noticed this fact; it's actually entirely by his design.

Once the Doctor can see that Rose has no intention of bringing up the very specific mistake he made on their exact landing date, he breathes a sigh of relief.

It's better that she doesn't know the reason why.

* * *

><p>Rose steps happily out of the TARDIS, full of anticipation of what awaits them at this latest destination, only to have her legs fold unexpectedly beneath her and her smile be replaced quickly by a grimace of pain.<p>

The Doctor bounds to her side, pulling her out of the night air and back into the safety of the TARDIS. As he slams the wooden door shut against the streaming moonlight, his hearts sink.

Rose is ill, and it's his fault for making a stupid mistake and, unlike all the other times he's done this exact same thing without meaning to, simply not noticing that he's fudged it up in time to stop her from suffering for it.

He forces the TARDIS into motion without any destination in mind, happy for them to cruise for a while inside the Time Vortex where nothing can hurt her.

He pulls Rose into his arms and, staggering slightly, carries her to the TARDIS infirmary. He watches over her unconscious form, lightly tracing into her skin words that would roughly translate (if the TARDIS ever bothered to convert Gallifreyan to English) to 'sorry' and 'my fault' as well as the sorts of even more meaningful phrases he can't quite say aloud to her because of what he fears they mean.

When she wakes up and asks him what's happened, he tells her that she came over all dizzy and gave him a right scare. She believes it without question, not asking for any further details. Why would she? She trusts him.

The thought that he's taking advantage of that makes him feel sick with guilt and self-deprecation, but he knows that that's just something he's going to have to live with.

He never plans to admit to her that he's lied.

* * *

><p>Nothing has seemed particularly right since she's landed herself in this universe for the second time, this time stranded away from everything (though thankfully not everyone) that she knows and loves.<p>

But the moment Rose steps outside her flat to meet Mickey to go out for pizza, just as the few stars that can actually be seen from the centre of London are starting to come out, is the moment that she figures out how very _wrong _things really are.

She falls to the ground, accompanied by Mickey's yelp of surprise. Sweat that springs up over her whole body gleams, picking up the shine of the moonlight.

Her brain feels as though it's suddenly heating up inside her skull. Not boiling, as she might expect, but _burning_. Images of things she doesn't recognise and can't quite comprehend race behind her eyelids like forgotten memories. She tries to block them, but the only thing capable of even slightly drowning them out is the reverberating echo of a howl throughout her mind.

The wolf she realised is hidden deep inside her skin seems to keen at the strong call of the full moon above her head. Rose writhes violently as if that wild animal is about to burst out of her at any second. She has no idea why it's happening to her, but she knows it's possible in a more general sense. She's seen it happen before; a human's body stretching and cracking its way into the form of a hulking best. Knowing what surely must be coming, and knowing the horrific downward spiral things are about to take for everyone in her vicinity, she tries to crawl away from Mickey, who's kneeling at her side and trying to pick her up and presumably throw her into the back of his van so that he can get her to someone who can help. She doesn't want him to touch her, or be near her, because she knows that he'll be the first victim if she can't get away in time. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, but especially not him.

She's too out of it to properly co-ordinate her movements and flee, though, so he manages to successfully get a grip on her. She's at the hospital before she knows what's happened; she thinks she must have passed out and lost some time along the way. She has a moment of fear for all these poor, innocent people – the sick or injured and their loved ones, as well as all the hospital staff – who she'll undoubtedly tear through like a knife penetrating butter. But then she realises that it's been quite some time and it doesn't feel like she's started to change. The pain and disorientation haven't abated any, but they haven't become significantly worse, either. She brings her fingertips to her face, and blunt nails rather than claws rake down her cheeks. She's still her. Rose Tyler. _Human_.

Though she's half-delirious and finds it difficult to hang onto consciousness, she still stubbornly refuses to fall asleep all night long in case when she wakes up she finds that she's become a raving animal while her guard is down. She's therefore awake to see in the sunrise and breathe a sigh of relief at having gone through the whole night without any change.

The doctors have all sorts of thoughts about what's happened. One claims it's a vicious virus – Rose was, after all, running a significant fever – though the woman can't quite explain how all traces of the supposed sickness have disappeared come morning. Another believes she has undiagnosed epilepsy and had a fit triggered by stress. Rose can't deny that 'stressed' is an understatement for her condition over the last two weeks, so she admits that that could be what happened and accepts a prescription for medication she knows she'll never take. She tunes out all the other theories that continue to be spouted at her as if they think she gives a damn.

It doesn't matter what _they _believe, for Rose is already certain about the source of the problem.

Perhaps she's not a werewolf in the same way that the creature that had gone after Queen Victoria had been, but she knows that there's a wolf inside her nonetheless, and it's clearly affected by the moon reaching its height. She'd heard that howl more than clearly enough that she's under no illusions.

She casts her mind back over the last year travelling with the Doctor and decides that it can't be a mere coincidence that she can't remember witnessing a single full moon on any of the planets they'd visited in that time. She remembers how the Doctor was occasionally so unwilling to let her so much as step foot out the door in certain places where he claimed he'd 'got the date wrong', even though his imprecise driving skills meant that he actually rarely got the date _right_. And there had been that one time when she'd fallen ill suddenly, much as she had the previous night, and she'd let it slide that the Doctor hadn't really given any adequate explanation...

She understands his plan, even though she doesn't agree with his decision to never tell her that something was wrong. However, she has no idea where any of it leaves her now. Without a TARDIS at her disposal, she can hardly just skip harmlessly past the night of the full moon whenever it rolls around. But she can't let it completely debilitate and even hospitalise her once every month, either, and that's not even accounting for the very real chance that each time the moon's pull might have an increasing impact on that strange force lurking inside her.

She reminds herself that the Doctor _knows _all this. In the heat of the moment he might have thought it was best to pack her off to this universe where she'd be with her family when the alternative seemed to be her certain and immediate death, but now that the threat the Daleks posed to the whole universe has passed, she knows he'll realise his mistake. He goes on about his brilliant mind far too often for her to believe he'll just forget something so important. And she's never seen him make a mistake yet that he didn't correct to the best of his ability.

He won't just leave her here in this universe to suffer twofold, both from missing him and the life she'd had with him, and from having to suffer again and again each lunar cycle because of something she barely remembers even doing (at least, she can only presume that this can all be traced back to when she looked into the TARDIS' heart, for she can't think of any other explanation that could be considered logical even by her recent standards).

She dwells on the issue for long enough that she privately finds herself hoping that this might actually be a _good_ thing. Bad Wolf is designed to lead them back to each other, after all. If it takes Bad Wolf manifesting itself in this cruel way to get the Doctor back, then Rose knows it'll end up being worth it. As long as she _does _get him back, of course.

He'll come for her, she firmly tells herself, and he'll save her from this. He has to.

~FIN~


End file.
